


Like Humans Do

by AlexKingOfTheDamned, swimsalot



Category: Wolverine and the X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Image, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, M/M, Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-19 23:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2406800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexKingOfTheDamned/pseuds/AlexKingOfTheDamned, https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimsalot/pseuds/swimsalot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt Wagner is turned human against his will, and has to figure out how to deal with the trials and tribulations of humanity while simultaneously balancing a tremulous relationship that might have been doomed from the start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a fun drabble and became something more serious. Hopefully it won't go on for TOO long.
> 
> I'm gonna try to keep the chapters on the short side.

“Warehouses. Why is it always warehouses?” Logan grunts. His knees are starting to get sore on the pavement, hunched behind some derelict machinery with the rest of his team. “Why don’t evil people ever do their evil experiments in a spa?”

 

He checks his cell phone for the zillionth time. He called Kurt twice after never receiving a response to his text message trying to call the teleporter to action. He has a habit of (literally) disappearing sometimes, but this time is especially inconvenient. His skills could really be useful for this mission. Plus, it’s just plain irritating that he wouldn’t respond to Logan, given how close they are. They might not be lovers, exactly, but they’re certainly intimate and they trust one another and they definitely shouldn’t ignore one other if they’re trying to contact the other!

 

They’re trying to infiltrate the base of a group of human extremists who have been expanding on the serum originally created to willingly turn mutants into humans. They’ve been kidnapping mutants of all classes from all over the country and forcing them to submit to the experiments whether they were proud of or happy with their mutations, or not.

 

They had to send Kitty in, in place of Kurt. He’s probably in Romania or Poland or some equally stupid shit when he should be here saving the lives of the people these humans stole.

 

He’d been crouched beside Remy, Bobby and Ororo for at least twenty minutes now and his legs were really starting to cramp. His metal skeleton can create quite a weight on his own body. He would feel worried that Kitty has been gone so long, except that her invulnerability guarantees that whatever is keeping her is important.

 

When she comes streaking back through the front wall of the building she’s out of breath and has a look of terror on her face so intense she might start crying. She doesn’t even pause for a second before she screams, “ _THEY’VE GOT KURT!_ ”

 

Logan doesn't remember standing up. He doesn't remember his shout of rage or the number of people he tears through as he hurtles through the building or the number of bullets that slam into his chest before he takes out the humans taking aim at him. He remembers Kitty getting in front of him and showing him the way to where Kurt is being kept but the long maze of hallways is a blur.

 

He remembers the screaming. Kurt’s screaming.

 

His head finally clears when they enter the laboratory where she had seen Kurt. He registers everything about the room. The stark white walls, the bright lights, the machines and tools on polished metal tables. He can smell the disinfectant they use that doesn't come close to covering the overwhelming scent of fear that permeates the air.

 

There's some sort of machine attached to the back wall, a little larger than the size of an average man. A body wearing nothing but small black shorts is strapped to it, tied down at the wrists and ankles with a belt across his chest and neck. There are sensors and tubes attached to him and Logan has to stop himself from ripping them apart to get him free.

 

Kurt is alive. He can tell that. He can hear his heart hammering in his chest. But he isn't what he used to be. In place of soft blue fur there's now smooth pale skin, five fingers replace three and there isn't a hint of a tail to be found.

 

They're too late.

 

Kurt is barely awake. His eyes are half-hooded and glassy and he’s shaking from head to toe. Every few seconds his muscles all tense up, and Logan realizes it’s because he’s being regularly shocked. It must have been a precaution to keep him from teleporting away. The scientists responsible for this must not have shut off the machine before they took off.

 

Distantly he hears the sounds of the others fighting the guards and freeing the other mutants, but he doesn’t really register them in the face of his best friend. His nose is the same sharp curve, his eyelashes are just as thick, his hair hasn’t changed, his lips are the same shape, he looks essentially the same but so monumentally different that Logan can’t even breathe.

 

Kitty drops into a squat and covers her face with a whimper of defeat. “I’m sorry I ran as fast as I could I’m sorry he was still- he wasn’t- when I found him he was still- ” she hiccups and moans regretfully.

 

Kurt’s breath is hitching. He appears awake, his eyes are open just a crack, but he’s definitely not registering anything happening to him, and his body continues to seize with the electricity surging through his muscles and locking them up to prevent teleporting that he isn’t even capable of anymore. Logan’s first instinct is to just smash everything, but he doesn’t know if that would do more harm than good, if they have some kind of failsafe, and Kurt looks so fragile right now.

 

"We have to get him out. Figure out how to turn off these machines," Logan orders, not even looking at the teary-eyed girl beside him. He can't drag his attention away from Kurt. It's clear he's in so much pain and Logan vows to find who did this to him and slice up their face so food they'll look like they went through a meat grinder.

 

Kitty rushes out to get Remy, hoping that his careful eye will be able to catch something on the machines. Logan tries to touch Kurt’s hand to let him know that he’s there, and he’s going to help him, but when the electricity surges through him it hits Logan like a bolt of lightning and he has to recoil several feet.

 

Remy arrives seconds later and scours the machine for anything that looks like an off switch before he finds, amazingly, a damn plug. He pulls it and the machines turn off instantly. Logan yanks the straps holding Kurt down without hesitation while Remy runs back to assist the others.

 

Kurt sags on the table, but Logan catches him quickly. He seems even lighter than usual, and he’s totally limp in the bigger man’s arms. His eyes finally slip all the way closed.

 

Logan gives him a little shake, hoping the teleporter (ex-teleporter) will respond. Kurt's eyelids flutter and he manages to open them barely a crack for a few seconds.

 

"Come on you damn elf! You have to stay awake," Logan growls, fear and anger all mixing together, making his tone sharp and desperate. "We don't know what they've done to you yet. You can't sleep."

 

Kurt doesn’t respond. His eyes close again. Logan curses and runs out into the main room with the limp man cradled to his chest. He finds Ororo melting the locks off of holding cages and sending 12 mutants running free into the night while Remy shoots syringes at the few remaining guards.

 

The look of pity and fear in her eyes when she sees Kurt is one that Logan has never seen before. She gives him the go-ahead to take Kurt somewhere safe instantly and he takes off without another word. When he leaves the noise and chaos of the warehouse, he can hear Kurt’s shuddering, ragged breathing. Wearing nothing but tiny black shorts, he’s probably freezing without his fur to keep him warm.

 

Logan clutches him close, trying to share his body heat all the way home.

 

The trip takes far too long in Logan's opinion but eventually they're back at the mansion and the doctors on staff have to practically tranquilize him just to get Kurt out of his arms. When he does let go they quickly shuffle him out the door, leaving him stranded in the hall while they go to work on Kurt, his parting words letting them know in no uncertain terms what he will do to them if his friend does not survive.

 

He’s stuck in that damn hall throwing a fit for almost four hours. He tries to pound his way in more than once, demanding answers, but the doctors promise him that even if Kurt does die, he’ll be the first to know.

 

When he’s finally let in, Kurt looks even worse than he did before. He has a breathing mask strapped over his face, and an IV in his arm. His hands are curled loosely, palms-up, over the covers pulled up to his chest. He’s wearing some dumb gown, and his skin looks thin and paper-white. His eyes and cheeks have sunken in, his hair is a right mess and he looks clammy and freezing.

 

The first stupid thought that crosses Logan’s mind is Kurt’s going to have a hard time adjusting to having five fingers.

 

He sits down in a chair provided for him as the doctors leave the room and he takes Kurt’s hand. It feels incredibly wrong. His fingers are much shorter than usual, there’s too many of them, there’s no velvety fur on the back of his hand, the pads of his fingers and his palm are so smooth, nothing like the leathery texture they used to have.

 

The only sound in the room is the rhythmic click-hiss-click-hiss of the respirator attached to the unstable mutant. Human. _Fuck_.

 

Logan releases his hand only long enough to pull an extra blanket over the body of the young shivering man and inspects him a little more closely. He realizes the reason Kurt’s eyes look so sunken is because he actually has significant creases under them that have never been there before, matched by the shallow creases beside his mouth and the lines across his forehead. Looking more closely, he can see traces of _silver hair_ at his temples. He realizes with a start he has no idea how old Kurt is. It never really mattered before.

 

Hours pass and Kurt doesn't wake up. Logan never believed talking to people who were unconscious or in comas or anything like that did any good but for Kurt he's willing to try.

 

So he tells him that how old he is doesn't matter, or the fact that he's human now and swears that they'll find a way to get him back to normal soon and even if they can't it's not like he has to leave the mansion because he's human now. He assures him that he's just as handsome now as he was when he was blue even if he does look like an old man. He tells him things between them won't be any different no matter what happens.

 

Eventually he runs out of things to say and falls silent, just holding Kurt's unfamiliar hand until he dozes off in the chair.


	2. Chapter 2

Kurt is asleep for days. As much as Logan wants to stay by his side 24/7, sometimes he gets ushered out by the doctors. He doesn’t get told much, either they’re deliberately sugar-coating what information they do have, or they just don’t know anything. Logan doesn’t know which infuriates and frightens him more.

 

According to the doctors, they’ve never seen a successful transformation of a gamma-level mutant. They’re not sure he’s ever going to wake up. When they tell Logan that it’s very likely his body could just give out and he’ll pass in his sleep, Logan breaks things, and then spends the next eight hours getting drunk and maintaining it.

 

The longer Kurt stays asleep, they say, the less chance he has of waking up. They monitor his brainwaves and insist that he’s slowly declining into total vegetable state. So when eight days turn into nine, Logan starts to consider killing him just to spare him the indignity of dying in his sleep like some old man.

 

Slowly Logan turns desperate. His assurances that Kurt will be alright turn to orders for him to wake up, then to pleas to show any sign of life, even just turning his head in his sleep. Any sign that he's still alive will be welcome.

 

But there's nothing. Kurt doesn't so much as sneeze and Logan looks for miracle cures. Mutants with healing abilities, ways to use his own DNA to help, anything that will spare him watching someone else he loves die. By the end of the second week he turns to prayer.

 

Thirteen days pass before Kurt finally wakes up. He cracks his eyes open blearily and stares around the room, disoriented and in pain. He feels weak and tired and cold, he’s so freezing cold.

 

He can barely turn his head. Mostly he just rolls his eyes around in his sockets to try and get a look at his surroundings. He’s back in the school. He recognizes this hospital room beneath the building. He’s never been lying in one of its beds before.

 

Logan is beside him. He’s hanging his head in his hands, his elbows propped up on his knees. He’s breathing unsteadily, Kurt might have believed he was crying if he didn’t know him better.

 

“Lo- ghh,” He coughs, shallowly and dry, his voice is cracked and his throat is parched. His chest feels hollow and fragile when he coughs.

 

Logan's head shoots up so fast he probably gave himself whiplash. There are still tears on his cheeks as he takes in the sight of Kurt, awake and alive, in front of him.

 

His eyes begin to water again as a wide grin breaks out across his face and he just barely managed to hold himself back from embracing the younger man breathless with joy. Not that it would take much, he seems to be having trouble breathing already.

 

"Fuck am I glad to hear even a croak from you." he says, grabbing a cup of water from the tray beside the bed and pulling off the breathing mask so he can bring it to Kurt's lips. "Drink slow or you'll choke yourself."

 

Kurt sips at the water until his throat is a little less dry. He tries to piece together what happened, the last thing he remembers is being electrocuted, strapped into that machine, blinding pain-

 

His hand twitches involuntarily. Furrowing his brows, he slowly drags his hand up and out from under the blankets. The sight that meets him has him going stock still. He doesn’t even breathe. The hand isn’t his own, it’s snow white and it has too many fingers, its too small, too thin. It looks like a spider.

 

His eyes go unfocused, his hand still raised as he realizes what this means. His chest clenches and his lungs seize up and refuse to draw breath, his muscles all clench and he realizes his tail is gone when he can’t move it or even feel it. Whatever that machine was designed to do, it worked.

 

"Hey, hey!" Logan shouts as the machine monitoring Kurt's heart rate starts going nuts. He sets the glass aside and takes the other mutant's shoulder. "Calm down! You're going to go into shock again if you don't calm down and we might not get you back again."

 

Kurt doesn’t register him. His ears have started to ring, and he realizes what he first thought was weariness after just waking up affecting his hearing, it’s actually the fact that the shape of his pinna has changed drastically.

 

He finally turns wide, frightened black eyes on Logan and smacks his hand away. He’s dizzy but it doesn’t matter when he throws his blanket off and sits up. The sight of his legs, pale and furless, has his head spinning. His stomach lurches and he’s so out of it that he gags, but after not eating for two weeks, nothing comes up.

 

“Elf,” Logan reaches for the younger man.

 

“Don’t touch me!” Kurt instinctively wants to lash out at him with the dangerous point of his tail, but his body doesn’t respond to the signals his brain is used to sending out. He covers his face with his hands, unsure of how to operate his fingers yet, and tries to calm his frantic hyperventilating.

 

"Okay. Alright," Logan says, taking his hands away. He sits back in his chair to give Kurt room to breathe. "But we're going to fix you. I don't know how long it will take but we'll get you back to normal."

 

Kurt is filled with the sudden, singular desire to run away. He wants to find some place to be alone and think. He’s quick as a flash, swinging his legs over the edge and then he’s on his feet, but he doesn’t take more than two steps before his entire center of gravity is thrown off without his tail for balance and he sprawls to the floor. He hears the legs of Logan’s chair scrape as he shoots up to a stand, but he throws his hand back behind him to keep him from advancing.

 

He slowly draws his knees up like he plans to stand, but the strength leaves him in a rush. He wants nothing more than to sink through the floor, or to just drop dead. Everything that made him unique is suddenly gone; everything that made him genuine and _useful_ is gone.

 

With a shout of rage he slams his fist against the marble floor. The pain is intense, he grits his teeth, and blinks away the threat of tears. He won’t cry.

 

"Kurt, hey. It's going to be alright we'll take care of you." Logan says in probably the gentlest tone he's ever used in his life. He doesn't come any closer but he's still watching Kurt closely.

 

Kurt doesn’t move. He stares hard at the floor beneath him. It’s so polished he can see a reflection of his own face in his shadow. Pale white and furless, black eyes like holes in his head, his teeth are human, his ears are human. He’s filled with so many warring emotions that he’s not sure what to make of it.

 

He still doesn’t acknowledge Logan. He works up the strength to push himself back to a stand, but without his tail to balance him, he wobbles like an unsteady child. He lurches forward to grab the side of a desk, but his feet won’t even cooperate. They’re half the size they usually are with far too many toes to negotiate, and they betray him with awkward tripping. His hands don’t grip the desk right, his fingers fold wrong and send pinching pain up his arms.

 

Rage fills him. He feels helpless and weak and tired. He smacks a cup of pencils off the desk, sending them scattering in his anger. It isn’t as satisfying as he’d hoped it would be.

 

Logan sighs and sets the half empty glass of water within Kurt's reach. "Throw that. It'll be more rewarding."

 

Kurt looks like he wants to defy him and ignore the glass entirely but after a moment of angry contemplation he sweeps the glass cup off the side table, sending it crashing to the ground where it shatters into a hundred pieces.

 

"Better?" Logan asks, leaning back again. "It's good to see you up and fighting already. It'll make the next part easier."

 

Kurt leans his hip against the desk sideways so he can press the heels of his hands into his eyes. He’s shaking violently, from anger and fright and chill.

 

“Vaht’s zhe next part?” he asks in a trembling voice.

 

"Adjusting. You've got to learn to walk again and use your new hands and adjust to your new hearing and all that crap." Logan says, trying to sound calm and relaxed, like it's nothing really to worry about. "You're not staying in bed being hand fed and carried to the toilet every time you need to piss until we get this fixed. You have to learn to survive until you're back to normal."

 

Kurt’s legs feel weak. He sags to the floor and leans sideways against the desk to support him. His hands rest limply in his lap palms-up; he stares at them and marvels at how truly ugly they look.

 

“I vish zhat machine vould have just killed me,” he mutters. This is so much worse than death, so much more undignified.

 

 

Logan growls and stands up, kicking his chair back as he advances on Kurt.

 

"Shut up. You ever say that again and I'll make you regret it. You're different now, big deal! There's nothing about being human that's worth dying over, you just have to get used to it. If you'd died in there I..." He cuts himself off with a snarl and turns to slam his fist into the wall as hard as he can. It hurts and he's sure his knuckles crack under the pressure even if they're mended again a few seconds later.

 

Kurt continues to stare numbly at his lap. He doesn’t really hear Logan. After a few seconds of tense silence he starts to drag himself back up to a stand with the desk, and practices balancing upright for a few seconds before stalking awkwardly to the door.

 

It opens just as he reaches it and stares face-to-face with a startled doctor. “You’re awake! You really shouldn’t be walking yet –” she tries to say, but she only gets shouldered past as Kurt makes his way into the hall leaning up against the wall.

 

The doctor stares after Kurt and then at the mess in the room and over to Logan, who appears to be shaking. “Do you think he’s a danger to himself?” she asks him seriously after looking back at Kurt, who has taken a limping turn around a corner.

 

"If he is I'll kill him." Logan snarls, turning to glare at the startled woman before taking off after Kurt.

 

It doesn't take long to catch up to him since the other man is stumbling and tripping over himself like a toddler just learning to walk.

 

"Get your ass back in bed before I throw you over my shoulder and carry you back."

 

“I’m not getting back in zhat bed,” Kurt’s voice is low and serious as he makes his way purposefully towards where he knows there’s a stash of jump suits. “Don’t _touch_ me.”

 

"You're not ready to be up and walking around. They have to run tests and shit. If you're going to act like a baby I'm going to treat you like one so you have until the count of three to turn your pasty ass around." Logan snaps, fists clenched at his sides. "Then I'll leave you alone."

 

Kurt turns a dangerous stare to Logan, staring down his nose at the much shorter man. “I appreciate zhat ve are friends,” he says through gritted teeth. “But as it stands you cannot order me around. I am not your child. I am not your charge. As it stands I am not even technically your lover. I vould have thought you smart enough to take zhe hint zhat _I don’t vant you around right now_.”

 

Logan hides how much Kurt's words hurt him behind a hard glare. "Then I'll go. I'll fuck off and never talk to you again if you want, but you're going back to those goddamn doctor's so your heart doesn't give out or something. Got it?"

 

When Logan reaches out to take Kurt’s wrist, he’s startled by Kurt’s other palm coming down hard across his face. Being slapped has only ever just mildly stung, physically. But Kurt has never hit him before.

 

“Let me _go!_ ” Kurt hisses, tugging at his wrist which is fixed in Logan’s literal iron grip.

 

Logan drops his hand like it's disgusting, like it's covered in slime. He steps around Kurt, growling angrily.

 

"Fine. I don't give a fuck, kill yourself if you want to," he sneers as he storms down the hall.

 

Kurt collapses against the wall shaking. He didn’t exactly mean to hit Logan. He’s just so wound up and agitated and furious at the world that he lashed out. His legs almost give out again, but he forces himself to continue walking and tries not to think about the look on Logan’s face right before he left.


	3. Chapter 3

Logan basically avoids Kurt for the next few days. This only hurts Kurt in part; the rest of him is far too occupied with being furious and frustrated.

 

It takes him three days to learn how to walk properly, and even still he trips clumsily sometimes. His toes aren’t prehensile anymore, and he finds it very hard to walk without the stabilizing thumb-like toe he used to have on his heel. His fingers are by far the hardest to figure out.

 

They never want to cooperate with him. His brain only knows how to control three from experience. Being born already mutated, he didn’t even start life out with five fingers. Not only is it impossible to figure out how to negotiate the damn extra digits, his entire hands have changed in texture. What was once hard and leathery is now smooth and baby-soft, and as if the fingers weren’t enough of a hassle, this new silken texture of his palms result in a _lot_ of dropped items over the next few days.

 

He can’t figure out silverware anymore. He keeps poking himself in the eyes on accident. His grip keeps slipping on almost everything he tries to pick up, or else he grips too hard so he won’t drop it, and he breaks it instead. He’s had four glasses worth of glass shards picked out of his hands over five days before he finally gives up and switches to plastic.

 

He feels marginally guilty for hitting Logan. But mostly he thinks Logan needs to get over himself and realize that he was in the wrong trying to manhandle Kurt when he was so frightened and angry. Not that he’s since stopped being frightened and angry.

 

Shoes are a brand-new experience. He can’t walk around barefoot anymore because the soles of his feet have also lost their leathery texture that was essentially the sole of a shoe in and of itself. His feet get cold easily now, and if he thought toes were hard to figure out, sneakers are impossible.

 

He doesn’t spend much time around anyone, really. The others all visit him, but he finds their condolences irritating and their pity infuriating. Kitty mentions to Logan in passing once that she would have expected Kurt to get sad or withdrawn. She’s not alone in thinking that this torrential violent anger is out of character for him.

 

Logan wants to go see Kurt every day, and every day it's harder not to. He wakes up in the morning wanting to check on Kurt and goes to bed wishing he could say goodnight to him. But he doesn't. Kurt doesn't want him anywhere around and as soon as he's out of the hospital he's probably going to kill himself for being human anyway. It's better to maintain some distance rather than watch him die.

 

He would have had to do that sooner or later anyway, he reminds himself. Maybe it's better this way. He can be angry at Kurt the way he goes now, rather than sad and furious at the universe with no way to vent his anger. And the distance and memory of how much Kurt doesn't want him around anymore will make it easier.

 

He hopes. It's probably not true but it helps a little.

 

After eight days of carefully monitored observation and testing, Kurt is deemed “fit” to be released. Kurt would have left days ago, but after he went to get some real clothes and returned to clean up his mess before retreating so some dark corner to think, the doctors present in the room casually informed him that Logan had scarcely left his side for the two weeks he was in a coma.

 

Which puts Kurt in a very difficult and confusing position. He doesn’t want to apologize to Logan for hitting him, because by all accounts, it was Logan’s fault and he deserved it. But for a man so small, he sure can hold a grudge, and he doubts he’d just let it drop if Kurt tried to pick up their awkward “not-a-relationship” relationship where they left off.

 

When he finally returns to the surface after spending so long underground, his new eyes have to readjust to natural light. He spends most of his time sequestered in the bowels of the school, in rooms away from windows. He finds that his skin has a lot harder time regulating temperatures so he can usually be found bundled in a sweater or else fanning himself with his own tee shirt.

 

He doesn’t really talk to the students. He knows they have a million questions by the way they look at him when they pass, but he always looks so stern and angry that nobody ever approaches. He knows some of them will want to ask if they can get _their_ mutations taken away, and he doesn’t even want the acknowledgement that his is gone.

 

It’s like if people start talking about it out loud in regular conversation, it’ll seal his fate in stone. He knows that Forge is desperately working away on the stolen machine that originally turned Kurt human, trying to reverse-engineer it to change him back, but the fact that it’s still not done even though it’s been a collective three weeks since his transformation, coma included, it doesn’t bode well. Forge never has trouble like this with machinery, but then again, it’s always been more difficult locating and activating the x-gene than it is subduing it.

 

And there’s the terrifying possibility that the machine didn’t just turn off his x-gene, but removed it entirely. And if that’s the case, he’ll probably never be able to change back. Even if they managed to plant a new gene, there’s no chance he’d mutate the same way.

 

Most often he can be found in the student lounge on the couches benignly watching tv. He’s not really good for anything anymore. He can’t join the other X-Men when they go out to do their Heroic Deed Of The Day. He can’t teach his class anymore (Coping With Gamma Mutations - and if you ask him, the dose of irony was entirely unnecessary.) Professor Xavier told him to take his time returning to the routine of teaching, and in the meantime his class is currently being substituted by Hank. But the bitter voice in the back of Kurt’s head suspects the Professor simply doesn’t want a human teaching in his school.

 

Logan has Kitty keep him informed of where Kurt is as often as she can so he can stay as far away as possible. If it weren't for his classes he'd take off and spend a few weeks away from the mansion entirely. He could find a nice motel and spend the whole time drunk so he doesn't have to think about Kurt. Maybe get himself a hooker and try to forget the man entirely.

 

But he doesn't. He stays and spends his free time training or hiding in his room or the library or anywhere he can go where he won't run into Kurt. He tells himself it's because he doesn't want to see him but he knows it's because he's afraid it'll be the other way around and Kurt will only throw him out again.

 

The first time he bumps into Kurt, it’s been about six days since he’s been moping around the school uselessly. It’s close to ten PM, so he figured the Elf would be in bed. He passes through the lounge to get to the kitchen and avoid a group of giggling girls in the hall, and Kurt’s just sitting there on the couch with his back turned away from Logan.

 

Logan freezes in place, ready to turn and run, but he remembers that Kurt is human now, he probably can’t hear or smell him. He’s staring at the TV, the news is playing. Logan recognizes the scenery instantly. A female reporter is standing in front of the warehouse they originally rescued Kurt and the rest of the mutants from.

 

“—and according to reliable sources, the data on the computers indicate one successful transformation at the _Gamma level_ ,” the reporter says cheerfully, her magenta lips spread into a wide smile. “We at Channel 10 strongly encourage the mutant who was changed to come forward and tell their story, and inspire other young mutants to know that they can be fixed, too.”

 

Kurt throws the remote at the screen with a roar of anger. He misses wildly.

 

Logan wants to go to him. He wants to smash the TV for him and tell Kurt how wrong they are and how perfect he was before. He wants so badly to be furious right beside him and be dragged up to bed so Kurt can vent his frustrations through rough, close to dangerous sex.

 

But he doesn't. He gives the TV one last murderous glare, making a mental note to track down this “Channel 10” in the morning, before turning to try to leave as quietly as possible.

 

Kurt turns to grab a tissue and sees movement in the corner of his eye. He whips around and sees the retreating form of the man who has basically fallen off the face of the Earth. Sure, he made no active personal attempts to find Logan, but he wasn’t actively avoiding him, either.

 

“Logan,” he calls out before the man can disappear, hoping he’ll stop and turn around rather than sprint away.

 

Logan considers pretending he didn't hear anything and just continuing on his way but he's already paused too long for that to seem at all realistic so he slowly turns and puts on his best cold demeanor.

 

"I wasn't spying on you. I was going to the kitchen for some dinner," he says as icily as he can manage.

 

“I didn’t think you vere spying on me,” Kurt says, turning around to sit backwards on the couch. He’s not sure what to say now that he’s faced with the other man. He’s not sure if Logan even wants to talk to him at all. He folds his arms over the back of the couch and rests his chin on them. “It’s… nice to see you again.”

 

He knows his tone sounds forced. And he knows Logan can tell it’s because he’s not saying what he really wants to say. But he has to start somewhere.

 

"Sure. Nice to see you too Elf. Great weather we've been having, how's the wife and kids?" Logan sneers. He pulls a cigar out of his pocket and uses a claw to cut it quick so he can get right to smoking the damn thing. He needs the nicotine now to settle him more than he thinks he's ever needed it in his life.

 

Kurt sags a little bit and drops his eyes to Logan’s feet for a few seconds. He’s not even sure where to begin.

 

“I’m… not sorry I hit you,” he says evenly. He might as well get it out before he loses the nerve. “But I’m sorry I hurt you.”

 

"Didn't hurt. You've got hands softer than a babies’ and the arm strength of a salamander. Barely felt it," Logan says before taking a long drag from his cigar. He's resolutely not looking at Kurt and instead focuses his attention on the cloud of smoke he exhales.

 

Kurt gives a sad sort of smile. “Things can hurt in more zhan one way, ja?” he says, barely above a whisper. “If I didn’t hurt you, you vouldn’t have avoided me all zhis time.”

 

Logan stares up at the ceiling. His eyes aren't tearing up and if his voice is a little off when he speaks it's because of the cigar.

 

"You told me to fuck off. So I did. Told you I wouldn't bother you again and you never told me you wanted me back. We aren't anything to each other right? It's no big deal."

 

“I didn’t tell you to fuck off,” Kurt says solemnly. “If you recall my exact vords I said I didn’t vant you zhere _right zhen_. And I told you not to touch me. I don’t- it feels wrong, being touched now, and I was frightened and you were so much stronger zhan me before, I vas afraid now zhat I’m like… zhis…” he sighs and runs his hands through his hair. He still can’t get over the way it feels passing through five fingers.

 

He takes a steadying breath and looks up again. “Vhat makes you say ve aren’t anything to one another?”

 

"You said it. You said we aren't even lovers. I took the hint, like you wanted. You're right anyway." Logan says, shrugging. "We're just pals who fuck sometimes. I don't have any right to tell you what to do or give a shit about you."

 

Kurt presses his hot forehead against his cool forearms. “You take things vay too seriously,” he mutters. “Although it is touching zhat you take my vords to heart so villingly zhat you vould maintain avoiding me for three veeks after one conversation upon waking up from a drugged coma.”

 

"You were pretty forceful about it. Hard not to take you seriously," Logan laughs bitterly. "And you never asked for me to come back. Made your point loud and clear."

 

“How could I ask you to come back vhen you vere aggressively avoiding me?” Kurt says, his tone a little more biting than he wants it to be. “I can’t _teleport_ anymore, Logan.”

 

"I was here in the mansion. It's not like you were cut off from the rest of the world. Could have sent a message with anyone to ask me to come visit," Logan says just as coolly as before.

 

“I don’t use people as messengers,” Kurt says seriously, flicking a piece of lint off the back of the couch. “Things get muddled in translation too often.”

 

He presses his forehead down again as he works up the nerve to say what’s been eating away at his mind for weeks. He takes a few deep breaths and licks his lips, clears his throat, and lifts his head. He looks at Logan’s eyes even though the other man isn’t looking back at him.

 

“I don’t like how easy it vas for you to cut me out of your life,” his voice is a little rough when he speaks and cracks at the end. He clears his throat again and jams his forehead back into his arms.

 

Logan's laugh is real this time, even if it is hollow and bitter. He laughs his way through another drag of his cigar and laughs out the exhaled smoke.

 

"Easy? You think it was easy? I wanted to come see you every day. I almost had to flee the damn mansion to keep myself from breaking down your door," Logan tells him, his tone almost accusatory. He's finally looking at Kurt now and there's something angry, almost feral about his expression. "Not knowing how you were doing was killing me. But I wasn't coming back just to watch you kill yourself."

 

Kurt’s smile was spreading as Logan speaks. He knew that the man would never be capable of gentle affection, and this angry but heartfelt tirade is all he wanted to hear.

 

But when Logan finishes speaking, his smile vanishes. His head snaps up and he’s a little startled to be looking the other man in the eye. “Kill myself? You thought I vas going to kill myself?”

 

"You said you wanted to die. You wanted that machine to kill you. As far as I knew you were going to finish the job as soon as you got out of there and all that time I spent waiting for you to wake up would have been for nothing," Logan says. He tries not think of the nights he laid awake worrying that tomorrow he'd hear that Kurt had found some way to end his life when no one was around to stop him.

 

“Vishing death and actually attempting it are very far apart,” Kurt says gently. “I promise you, I have no intentions to die a human, if I can help it. I vouldn’t be able to handle zhe indignity.”

 

"You were angry. You were a fucking mess. You might say that now but then I couldn't be sure what you would do. And I wasn't going to watch anyone else I love die. Especially not over something as stupid as being human for a little while." Logan says through tightly clenched teeth.

 

Kurt has to drop his face again, but this time it’s because he can feel it heating up. His white skin betrays him when he flushes now; it was so much easier to hide when he was still covered in fur with dark skin.

 

He wants to acknowledge the power of what Logan just said. But he knows how emotionally constipated the man is, and how easy it can be to chase him away with things like genuine sentiment and affection.

 

Slowly he stands up and walks around the couch. He still wobbles a little, and his toes catch awkwardly in the carpet once, but he rights himself before stepping up to the raised ledge that borders the living room so that they’re almost even with one another. Kurt is still a couple inches taller. He reaches up and gently takes the cigar out of Logan’s mouth before leaning in and pressing a kiss to his lips.

 

Logan stiffens for a minute, not sure if he's supposed to kiss back or not. He decides he might as well and let Kurt hit him again if he doesn't like it and finds himself wrapping the man up in his arms and kissing him like they haven't kissed in years rather than weeks. It's fierce and possessive and angry but damn it feels so good.

 

Kurt feels different of course. His hands on Logan's arms are too soft and there's no fur tickling him where they touch but it's still Kurt. He tastes the same, his lips are the same size and shape and he's still the man Logan wants in his arms so it's okay.

 

Kurt’s arms wrap around Logan’s neck to keep his cigar safe and out of harm’s way. As he predicted, it feels so much stranger to be touched now. He’s basically avoided all physical contact with people since his change, and he was too drugged and halfway delirious to remember what Logan’s hand felt on his wrist, especially over the overwhelming fear that dominates that memory.

 

He doesn’t have any fur to mute the sensations now. Every touch feels like lightning, raising goose bumps and sending signals to his brain like fireworks. He moans into Logan’s mouth and presses up to him, taking over the kiss in the direction he wants it to go. His tongue isn’t nearly as long or borderline prehensile as it used to be, but he can still use it as a weapon of mass destruction. Nobody knows how to take Logan apart like Kurt does.

 

When he breaks the kiss they’re both panting and smoky-eyed. “Take me to your bedroom,” he whispers against Logan’s lips.

 

"Fuck, yes." Logan growls before sweeping Kurt up in his arms and heading out the door.

 

He delivers him to the room and deposits the other man gently on the bed before crawling over him to resume their kissing while they slowly strip each other, revealing their bodies as if for the first time and each taking this chance to explore what each other feels like now.

 

Normally Kurt prefers to take charge in the bedroom, but he barely understands his body the way it is now, and every touch feels like ice and fire at the same time. The sensations are overwhelming and he’s shaking within seconds.

 

He’s never come so fast in his life.

 

Lying on Logan’s chest afterwards feels so strange, too. He plays with his chest hair, really feeling it for the first time, and pushes up on his elbow to nuzzle his cheek against it. It’s springy and a little scratchy, but it smells so intensely like Logan at his very core that even without his super-nose he can breathe it in.

 

Logan runs his fingers through Kurt's hair and traces lines on his smooth back to raise goosebumps on the exposed skin. Kurt has never had goosebumps before and it's kind of fun to watch him shiver and squirm at the new sensations.

 

"We're good right? You and me and whatever the fuck this is?" he asks after a while.

 

Kurt nods. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t need to. They’re content to just lie together in comfortable, companionable silence. A small part of him wants to define what they have, what they are, it wants to categorize it and store the information. But the larger part of him is quite content to just let them _be_.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Things don’t get particularly easier. They certainly get more enjoyable, without the stress of worrying over his and Logan’s not-a-relationship relationship. But everything is still just as infuriatingly impossible as before.

 

He feels like a paraplegic sometimes. He can’t even function his fingers to brush his teeth or hold a fork, and he’s lightyears away from figuring out how to type again. He continues to accidentally break things no matter how hard he tries to keep his hands steady, and finds them shaking often.

 

Sometimes he takes his anger out on Logan. But now when he does, he apologizes immediately.

 

Logan tries to be supportive. Patience isn't one of his strong suits so when he doesn't know what to say or gets tired of all the broken dishes he has to clean up he finds himself going to the Professor. If anyone will understand sudden serious changes to their body and needing to relearn basic skills it's him. They talk for a while and he leaves a little more informed on what he can do to be there for Kurt, even if there's nothing he can really do to help him.

 

The best he can do is at night when he can show him some of the benefits of his new body, most of which involve his heightened sensitivity. If it turns out they can't get him back to how he used to be at least Logan can show him that he'll want him to stick around no matter what.

 

Sometimes Kurt still retreats to be alone. Logan isn’t afraid anymore when he does.

 

He gives him the space he needs, but he never lets him get totally withdrawn. He’ll let him be alone for a few hours and then gently remind him to get back into polite society. He favors the attic of the school, which is mostly musty storage, but it’s well-lit by several giant windows, and kept fairly clean, and it’s definitely free of people. Sometimes Logan will find him practicing his walking up there, or trying to negotiate an old hairbrush or paint brush. His favorite dexterity exercise seems to be opening and closing old jars.

 

On one such afternoon, after letting Kurt by himself for almost four consecutive hours, Logan starts the ascent to the attic to bring Kurt to dinner. But as he starts down the hall that leads to the pull-down staircase, he hears something break overhead. Which means either Kurt is angry, or he’s going to be.

 

By the time he rushes up the stairs, he finds Kurt crouched in the middle of the room beside a broken jar and a roll of tape, and he’s frantically taping his fingers together.

 

"What the hell Kurt, stop!" Logan yells. He rushes over and yanks the tape out of the younger man's hand and almost throws it out the window in disgust. "You're going to hurt yourself if you do that. Don't you know about blood flow and that shit?"

 

Kurt covers his face with his taped-together fingers, shaking. They pinch a little, he taped them too tightly, but they finally feel a little more normal. He shakes his head, trembling, and tries to take deep breaths to hold back the tears he’s been avoiding for weeks now.

 

“I just vant to be normal again,” he says shakily, curling his hands into fists and pressing them into his eyes until he sees shapes.

 

"Yeah and when we have to amputate because you've cut off the blood flow for too long, that'll feel normal too right?" Logan snaps. "We'll get you normal again but you can't do this to yourself in the meantime it's fucked up."

 

He gently takes Kurt by the wrist and tugs him to his feet. "I think you need to talk to the professor. Charley knows about this kind of shit. He'll help."

 

Kurt follows Logan like a child in trouble, with his head bowed, picking at the tape around his fingers but not unwinding them. He doesn’t really register the short conversation between Logan and the Professor, and sits down in one of his plush leather armchairs, crossing his legs instinctually. His fingers are starting to turn purple and tingle.

 

The professor hand Logan a pair of scissors so he can gently cut away the tape binding Kurt's fingers. He's gentle and careful and once it's all off and littering the floor spends a few minutes rubbing them to get the blood moving again. He talks to the professor a little more before standing up from his chair, assuring Kurt that he'll be right outside but that this conversation needs to be between him and Charles.

 

Kurt doesn’t look up. He’s not sure what he’s expected to say. He doesn’t even have to worry about the Professor reading his mind because his brain is such a fuzz of static right now there isn’t anything _to_ read.

 

Logan is outside for over an hour while they talk. Or, while Charles talks. He's not sure how much Kurt will have to say but that's really up to him. Maybe the Professor will get him to open up a little and face the things that are scaring him, like the possibility that he won't be able to go back to how he was before. Maybe he can help him come to terms with his new limitations and the things he'll have to do to adjust. Maybe Kurt will have questions and be willing to listen this time.

 

There's no way for Logan to know, he just has to sit and wait.

 

When Kurt finally comes out of the office, his eyes are red and blotchy. Looks like the Professor finally got those tears to fall. Logan stands up to greet him, but he just gets a face full of black hair when the younger man stoops to embrace him and cry against his shoulder.

 

He doesn’t cry for very long. He says his has “something to do” which would make Logan nervous if Kurt hadn’t just come out of a clearly heartfelt conversation with Xavier. He promises to meet Logan for dinner before he rushes down the hall, and Logan doesn’t see him even trip once.

 

By the time Kurt meets him in the kitchen, his eyes are back to normal. Logan’s not sure he’ll ever get over the change in his eyes, but he’s happy to see he didn’t run off to cry more. Kurt’s hands are folded behind his back, but Logan doesn’t even need to ask about it before he shows his hands to the older man.

 

He’s wearing the gloves that went with his old uniform. His fingers have been separated to fit into the two sleeves. Absolutely an improvement from the tape.

 

Logan gives him a kiss, not caring who else might be around for dinner, and assures him that the gloves don't look stupid now. He just has to promise to take them off sometimes and exercise his fingers.

 

It looks like things might be looking up at least and Logan is definitely relieved. He isn't meant to be the nice supportive boyfriend-lover-fuckbuddy 100% of the time. It's taxing and wearing on him and hopefully this will push back the inevitable explosion for a little while longer.

 

It doesn’t help Logan’s stress level when a few days later, Kurt makes the decision to actually come out to Channel 10 as that one mysterious experiment that got away.

 

“They are gonna tear you apart!” Logan growls frustratedly as Kurt mulls over whether to wear his lavender dress shirt or the red.

 

“For zhe last time, Logan, I’ve made up my mind. I’ve already contacted zhem and we’ve set up a live showing. I need to spread zhe word to young Gamma-level mutants zhat zhey have nothing to be afraid or ashamed of.”

 

“You really think they’re gonna let you get away with saying that kind of stuff?” Logan says irritably.

 

“Of course not,” Kurt’s cheerful when he pats Logan’s cheek. “Zhat’s vhy I demanded a live show, or I vouldn’t go on at all.”

 

"They're going to say terrible stuff to you. They're going to call you a freak and all that shit and I won't be held responsible for any intestines that might end up splattered across the floor if they piss me off too much." Logan snarls, extending his claws to make a point. "…wear the purple one. It'll look better on TV."

 

Kurt grins as he picks up the lavender shirt and shrugs it over his shoulders. “I know vhat zhey’re going to say to me. I’ve thought about this for a long time now and I’ve prepared myself for zhe absolute worst.”

 

He rolls his sleeves up to his elbows and turns to face the shorter man. He grabs him by his belt loops and drags him into an embrace. “And _you_ are going to sit in zhe audience, Mr. Man. Don’t attack any camera men or reporters or I’ll have zhe Professor ground you for a month.”

 

"Or you can tie me up in your dressing room so I can watch it on the little tv in there. And we can have some fun before hand." Logan suggests with a smirk.

 

“Absolutely not. I’m not going on live TV disheveled and flushed vhen I can barely walk in shoes as it is,” Kurt smacks Logan on the butt as they head out of the room. He shares a nod with Xavier as he passes, and holds himself up a little straighter.


	5. Chapter 5

The studio lights are blinding. Kurt gets makeup caked into the lines across his forehead and under his eyes, much to his dismay. He never really thought about them before, he’s been much too occupied by other things. But apparently his face isn’t fit for TV even as it is, despite the station sounding so thrilled to have the first-ever interview with a recorded transformation of a Gamma-level mutant into a human on their channel.

 

He recognizes the woman with the magenta lips instantly when she flounces haughtily onto set. He’s not sure how she managed to get her hair so large.

 

“Kurt Wagner?” she greets with a wide, fake smile, mispronouncing his name with a w.

 

“Actually it’s pronounced _Vagner_ ,” he corrects modestly and awkwardly shakes her hand when she offers it.

 

She gives a twittery little laugh, either not hearing him or not caring as she barks orders to the camera men and lights, and adjusts her plunging cleavage before the main camera man counts down to start.

 

“And, we’re back!” her voice is shrill and annoying. Kurt exchanges pitying looks with Logan in the audience. “I’m Polly King and this is Channel Ten News. I’m here _live_ with the first-ever victory of science on the Gamma-level, Kurt Wagner!” she mispronounces his name again and he has to force himself not to grunt. “Would you like to begin by telling us about your success story Mr. Wagner?”

 

Instead of answering her, Kurt turns his eyes to the camera. “Polly, I couldn’t help but notice zhere’s quite a picket going on out in front of zhe station. A large number of mutants have gathered to protest my appearance. Is zhis station going to cover zhat at all, or interview any of zhem?”

 

Polly's fake smile becomes even more forced and again she titters her little laugh, some of the audience joining her.

 

"Well Kurt, we're here to talk about you, not them. You're the miracle we all want to hear about! Your success story is sure to inspire hundreds of other mutants like you used to be to seek cures for themselves." she says, her voice sickly sweet and overly cheery. "And that's what's really important, wouldn't you agree?"

 

“Vell, Polly,” Kurt parrots. “Zhe fact is zhat I didn’t seek a cure,” Kurt says, and watches as her smile falters somewhat. “Zhat facility you found vas empty for a reason. Zhe scientists inside vere doing illegal experiments on unwilling victims. Zhese experiments vere performed vith no anesthetic or even a metaphor of sterility, zhey vere excruciatingly painful, and several young mutants died in zhe process.”

 

Polly clears he throat as she looks nervously to the cameramen and her producer beyond as if seeking their help. "Well, that is certainly new information to us and of course it is tragic. Absolutely horrible. But out of this terrible, terrible situation something amazing has arisen. You, Kurt."

 

Suddenly she turns to the screen taking up the wall behind them and suddenly a pull size picture of Kurt in his natural, blue, three fingered form appears.

 

"Just a few months ago this was you Kurt. Now you can't tell me you miss not being able to walk down the street without standing out worse than blinking neon sign." she says happily, sure she's got him trapped.

 

Kurt stares up at the picture in awe. It looks like it’s been cropped out of a larger photo, he sees partial limbs of other people in the corners. His heart speeds up. _He_ doesn’t even recognize the picture.

 

“Vhere did you get zhat photo?” he asks, stunned. “I actively avoid being photographed.”

 

"An anonymous source gave it to us." Polly answers. "And out of concern for his or her safety I can not give you a name. But let's talk about your aversion to being photographed. Wouldn't you say that arose from self-consciousness over your naturally odd, some might say 'freakish', appearance?"

 

“No, actually, it’s for religious reasons,” Kurt tells her, a little startled that people are taking his picture without his knowledge. He’s beginning to really enjoy the frustrated flickers he can get out of her.

 

"You are very religious, aren't you? Catholic, sources have told us. Have your devilish looks influenced your faith at all? I'm sure going to church on Sundays looking like that couldn't have been easy." Polly says, barreling right ahead, as unfazed as she possibly can.

 

“Are you flirting vith me?” he raises his eyebrows at her and smiles when her cheeks turn a little pink.

 

“Please,” she clears her throat.

 

Kurt sighs and looks down at his hands. “To be perfectly honest, yes. I vas very devout for a number of years. I vas convinced I vas going to hell just because of how I looked, and nobody ever told me otherwise. I needed guidance as a child, and I knew no adult mutants, so I turned to God. It’s very important for young mutants to have mutant role models to look up to.”

 

"But if there's a cure available, why will they need mutant role models when they can have normal ones?" Polly asks, pink lips stretched wide in what is surely supposed to be an attempt at a kind, motherly smile. Like she's speaking to a child too naive and simple to understand why their logic isn't really logic at all.

 

“Zhat’s zhe kind of backwards thinking that leads young mutants – like I vas – into thinking zhey’re evil or wrong or deserve to die,” Kurt says firmly. “I vas raised in a _circus_ and I never questioned it because I believed I didn’t deserve anything better. Now zhere are so many helpful resources for young mutants to learn how to control zheir abilities and live in modern society successfully – ”

 

“But –” Polly starts.

 

“Don’t interrupt me please,” Kurt says. Her lips snap shut. “It took me decades to accept myself. It took me more zhan half my life to recognize zhat man- ” he points at the picture behind him on the wall. “- vas beautiful and unique. I had to teach myself not to hate me just for having fewer fingers and fur, I had to relearn vhat it meant to love myself. I didn’t even know self-confidence vas an _option_.

 

“It vasn’t until very recently zhat I finally accepted myself, and I finally, really started to enjoy my own body and vhat I vas capable of. I started vorking vith young mutants, teaching zhem how to love zhemselves at zhe age vhere confidence is paramount. And just as I vas really starting to enjoy my life for zhe first time- ”

 

He has to pause when his voice trembled, and he hears a quiet murmuring in the audience as they recognize he’s just started to cry.

 

“It vas _stripped_ from me against my vill. If zhis had happened to me ten years ago, I vould have velcomed it. I vould have been thrilled. But zhat’s only because ten years ago I didn’t know zhat I vas _allowed_ to love myself.”

 

A hush falls over the station. Nobody dares to even breathe. Kurt looks over at Logan, who looks like he’s about to burst with pride. Polly is so stunned she can’t say a word, so he continues.

 

“To answer your earlier question, no, it isn’t a relief to _valk down zhe street_ now because I can’t even _valk_ properly. I can’t pick up a fork or a tooth brush or negotiate buttons into zheir holes. I can’t hear things correctly anymore, and my eyes are so sensitive to zhe light now zhat I see shapes. I get cold easy and I fall down frequently. Zhis transformation has been a _nightmare_. I vould give anything to change back.”

 

In the crowd Logan is grinning broadly to himself and wishes he was close enough to really see the shock and horror on that bitch of a reporter's painted face.

 

Polly, however, recovers quickly. The shock at having Kurt speak so openly about accepting himself is quickly wiped away and replaced by a stony suspicion.

 

"So, Mr. Wagner, you don't support these sorts of cures for any mutants? Not even those with extremely dangerous abilities?" she asks, or rather accuses. "Mutants who can't go out and be part of society because of their volatile powers or those who attack humans on an almost daily basis?"

 

“I support zhe cure wholeheartedly for mutants who truly vant to be turned human,” Kurt says without skipping a beat. “But only if zhis decision is made of zheir own free will, after zhey’ve thought it over. I do _not_ support zhe fearmongering done by humans trying to tell young mutants zhat zhey need to be ‘fixed’ in order to be happy and beautiful. It simply isn’t true.”

 

"But for their safety and the safety of those around them, isn't it better that they be cured? If it's for the good of the public at large. We can't be certain these young mutants will use their unnatural abilities wisely," Polly probes.

 

“Humans curing any mutant against his or her vill because you don’t like zheir powers or how zhey look is tantamount to humans being selectively neutered against zheir vill because zhe gene pool vould be better off vithout zheir donation,” Kurt says coldly.

 

"I don't think that's entirely the same," Polly titters. "Racism and fear of a man who could control almost every mind on the planet if he wanted to aren't exactly the same thing. You'll have to agree the second is much more reasonable."

 

“Zhey’re exactly zhe same to zhe individual. It’s abhorrent, zhis idea of removing someone’s identity by force. If a mutant vants to be human by zheir own choice, zhere are resources available, and zhere is a successful cure. But it’s not zhe only option, if you think zhere’s nowhere else to turn, you’re wrong.” He’s clearly addressing the cameras now, and Polly is starting to look nervous. “Zhere are places you can go vhere you vill be safe and loved, surrounded by people just like you. Don’t give up hope.”

 

Polly abruptly makes the decision to cut to a commercial after he finishes speaking, but Kurt feels satisfied. He’s definitely said his piece, and maybe a little more than he meant to share.

 

Logan comes down from his place in the audience to meet Kurt off the set, pausing only to sneer at Polly as she passes. He reaches Kurt and pulls the younger man into a tight embrace.

 

"You did great elf," he says when he lets Kurt go. "The look on her face every time you shut her down was priceless. I wish I could get souvenir photos."

 

“I don’t think I missed anything I vanted to say,” Kurt says, his voice trembling a little. “Could you tell how nervous I vas? Did it show? I felt like I vas going to pass out.”

 

Logan shakes his head. "Solid as a rock. I thought I was going to jump out of my chair when she called you a freak. And when she started attacking the Professor. I should have done something. I bet one look at my claws would have her pissing her control top pantyhose."

 

“I’m surprised you know vhat zhose are,” Kurt grins and stoops to press a quick kiss to Logan’s lips to try and calm his nerves.

 

“You’re gay?!” He hears Polly blurt as she comes back around the corner to prepare for her next guest.

 

He turns his attention back to her and raises his eyebrows. “Is zhat really vhat surprises you zhe most about me?” he says in lieu of trying to explain bisexuality to a bigot.

 

Logan lifts his fist menacingly of like he's about to flip her the bird before sliding his middle claw slowly through the skin of his knuckles, sneering at her as she goes pale in fright.

 

"Do you have something to say to us because I've got five more of these that could really do a number on that knock-off Prada bag you're hiding behind your chair."

 

“Don’t attack zhe nice lady’s accessories,” Kurt says, putting his finger on the tip of Logan’s claw and putting the barest amount of pressure on it so that he has no choice but to slip it back into his arm or else pierce Kurt’s finger. “She’s just trying to do her job, and you don’t need to get arrested.”

 

"This is the sort of thing I was talking about." Polly says before turning around with a flip of her hair. None to quietly she adds, "Animals like him need to be controlled somehow."

 

“Don’t vorry, Miss King,” Kurt calls after her. “I have a leash and collar for him.”

 

Logan gives a bark of laughter as she spins around, looking absolutely scandalized, before hurrying off in the opposite direction to put as much space between herself and them as possible.

 

"Shout it a little louder why don't you I'm not sure the cameras picked that up," Logan says, pinching Kurt's butt in retaliation. "I've got an image to maintain you know. And it doesn't involve your weird-ass fetishes."

 

“Let’s go to zhe market and pick something up for a celebratory dinner,” Kurt smiles. He’s walking on cloud nine, there isn’t a thing that could possibly bring down his mood.


	6. Chapter 6

When they return to the school, he’s swarmed. Kitty clings to his back in a tight embrace and doesn’t let go for a full ten minutes, and Storm grabs him by the face to give him a big kiss. Hank pats him on the shoulder so firmly it almost sends him tripping over his own stupid shoes. But the look on the Professor’s face is the most rewarding, his eyes creased by a proud smile.

 

Over the next couple weeks, there’s a small flood of students to the school, most of them, unsurprisingly, Gamma-level. A girl with scales and big leathery wings shows up with her best friend, a boy who seems to be made entirely out of water contained within a humanoid shape. A young boy with one eye enrolls, followed by twin girls conjoined right down the middle who change color frequently, a girl with six arms, and a boy with hands for feet. There’s too many to count, and the student body grows more beautiful.

 

Kurt takes his job back. He’s surprised that Xavier would actually allow him to teach a class about coping with mutations when his own has disappeared. But it’s worth it when he sees six new faces in his class his first day back. He apparently inspired more people than he thought he might.

 

He’s begun to really accept the fact that he might never change back. The most frightening part of this, he finds, is the sudden and very real awareness that half of his life is over. It was never a problem, considering his mother’s genes had been passed down to him and even though he was over forty, he barely looked or felt a day over twenty, and would probably continue to live in youth for a very long time just as she has. He has a very nasty, foreboding sense that he’s going to die very soon, but he writes it off as paranoia.

 

He works daily with Professor for one hour to really master those pesky fingers. At first when Logan learned about this, he thought Xavier would be teaching him how to hold pens or play with an abacus or something dignified and practical like that. He found out after five days that they’re just playing video games together for an hour every day.

 

He works with Hank every other day on figuring out how to make his feet work for him rather than against him. He also starts back into the workout schedule he used to maintain but has been neglecting for very many weeks. It frustrates him to no end when he can’t do the same things he used to, and throws a short fit when he fails miserably to get the anger out so he can level his head and try again.

 

Logan couldn’t be prouder, watching him adjust. He won’t lie, he’d love to have Kurt back the way he was. Especially now that he knows how much Kurt cherished his own appearance and abilities after struggling with them for so long. But if he never changes back, this would be okay too.

 

Another thing that frequents Kurt’s mind since his television appearance is the lines on his face. Logan will catch him frequently staring at his reflection in anything shiny and rubbing at the lines in his forehead like he’s trying to smooth grooves out of clay. He massages the lines beside his mouth and wipes his eyes often, but if he ever catches Logan watching him, he quickly brings up a subject to distract him.

 

Logan does his best to keep Kurt's mind off it. He goes back to calling him things like "elf" and "kid" on occasion to remind him of his youth. Kurt can't even argue that he isn't a kid because everyone is a child compared to Logan. There's no telling how well it's working but Kurt seems to smile a little more often which is good enough for Logan.

 

He also tries his best at being romantic, which amounts mostly to sharing meals and snuggling sometimes, to try to keep Kurt's spirits up despite the very little progress that has been made in getting him back to his old self. It's all small gestures and while they still haven't sat down and talked about what they are to each other yet it's become clear to them both that they are in _some_ sort of a relationship. Which seems good enough for right now.

 

But still when Logan catches him alone, he’s pawing at those pesky lines, or messing with the silver hair at his temples trying to rearrange his well-groomed black locks to hide it, or sometimes Logan even sees him picking them out.

 

Even when he’s not in front of a mirror Kurt seems to have developed a nervous habit of rubbing at the dark bags under his eyes, like he thinks if he only rubs just enough he’ll smooth them right out.

 

Kurt realizes he’s not being subtle about it. Part of him really isn’t trying to be. He’s so frustrated he could scream. It feels like there’s a temper tantrum just waiting to be thrown, always right beneath the surface of his skin. He worked so hard to finally accept his own personal beauty, for it to be taken away so abruptly has left him feeling the weight of this new face like an anchor in his gut.

 

He doesn’t feel _attractive_ anymore. Before, he might have looked strange, like a devil even, but his appearance drew raw emotion and reactions out of people. Awe, inspiration, fright, desire. Now… he just looks like a very tired and very skinny, underfed middle-aged man. There’s absolutely nothing that holds him apart from the rest of humanity.

 

"We could get you stuff. Makeup, that anti-aging shit they sell on tv," Logan suggests one morning when he finds Kurt in the bathroom, staring at the mirror and trying desperately to smooth out the lines on his face. "You look fine to me but if it really bugs you that much we can go shopping."

 

Kurt sighs and turns around to lean backwards against the sink. “I look close to death,” he mutters. “I look _ill_. Do you think I’m too skinny? Maybe I should get a haircut.” He shakes his hands nervously through his hair.

 

"You've always been too skinny. And you don't look close to death, what does that even mean? The professor looks more than twice your age and he doesn't look close to death," Logan says, rolling his eyes. "You want to cut your hair go for it. Shave it off if you like, it'll grow back eventually. I honestly don't give a damn about your hair you'll still look sexy to me."

 

Kurt looks up through messed-up bangs with a cautious smile and his hands slip from his hair to the sides of his neck. “You really think so?” he asks quietly.

 

"Yeah. And I'll prove it to you later. Now get out of here so I can piss," Logan says gruffly.

 

Kurt flops out on their bed with a sigh and stops himself when he started to reach for his eyes to rub under them. He stares at his palm for a second and lets it drop back to the mattress. Slowly his mouth spreads into a grin and he rolls over onto his side to smash his face into a pillow.

 

Maybe it doesn’t really matter if the world finds him intriguing, physically. Maybe all that matters is that Logan still finds him attractive. Even when he’s disheveled or he just woke up or he’s cranky or if he has lines all over his face.

 

Logan doesn’t say anything when he comes out of the bathroom. Kurt has grown accustomed to not expecting flowery niceties to come gushing out of Logan. He’s learned to read them in his depthless eyes instead, and the way Logan touches him with gentleness and purpose tells Kurt so much more than he could ever say out loud.

 

Today Logan crawls over him on the bed, his short broad frame looming over Kurt as he bends down to press kisses to the younger man's neck and shoulders. He doesn't say anything or do anything to make it more than a reminder of how much he wants and cares for Kurt before he pulls back to roll off the bed and start getting dressed.

 

"Alright lazy ass, get up. We've got a long day ahead of us remember. We'll finish this up tonight."

 

That day there’s a new student in Kurt’s class, his entire skin covered in shifting and changing tattoos. Kurt gets an idea, and keeps staring at the poor boy all through class unconsciously, until by the end the boy shyly asks him if Kurt thinks he’s too distracting to be in a school. Kurt apologizes for staring, compliments his beautiful markings, and sends him on his way.

 

He’s missing around lunch time, and when Logan next sees him, he’s poring through four separate tattoo magazines at the same time, each one opened to a different page on the kitchen table. He’s not even sitting in his chair like a person, he’s crouched up on his knees like an excited child, leaning over the table and running his fingers over intricate tattoos on the glossy pages.

 

"No. You cannot get your whole body tattooed blue," Logan says in greeting. He drops into a chair across from Kurt and takes one of the magazines. "What are you doing and why?"

 

Kurt laughs and thumbs to a new page in the magazine nearest to him. “I vasn’t planning on getting my whole body tattooed blue. Just one. I’ve always been interested by tattoos, but I vas never able to get one before. Vhen I vas young I used to… I used to cut myself in patterns zhat vould show up on my skin, but zhe scars have faded over zhe years.”

 

"That's kind of messed up. But I get it. I always wanted a tattoo too but I never could," Logan says, nodding along. "So what do you want to get? Big fancy cross on your back? You could go totally honest and get "pain in the ass" tattooed across your forehead."

 

“Is zhat a judgment of my character or my sexual prowess?” Kurt shoots him a look over the top of his magazine.

 

Logan smirks. "Both. Guess which one applies right now."

 

Kurt sits down in his chair properly so he can kick Logan in the shin. They skim over the magazines together and talk about possible tattoos, both realistic and unrealistic, before Kurt says that he’s made up his mind. He’s never been much of an artist when it comes to anything besides abstract design, but he does his best on a piece of printer paper to illustrate a cross behind a pair of folded, three-fingered hands clasped around a dangling rosary, with a garland of thorns sweeping behind it.

 

It only takes him a few minutes, just a basic sketch. He knows the tattoo artist would only need a rough idea to go from, and he or she would draw it much better. Even so he fusses over the details of the fingers and the rosary, before he finally gives up with a huff and drops the magazine flat that he’d been using to shield his drawing from Logan. He turns the sheet around to face the other man and slides it across the table.

 

“Vhat do you think about something like this?” he asks sheepishly.

 

Logan takes the sketch and studies it closely. It's rough and the lines aren't perfect and the decoration to the cross isn't much more than scribbles in the vague idea of something intricate and beautiful. But it's so very Kurt that Logan can't help but smile.

 

"I knew you'd want a cross," he says, laughing a little. He hands the sheet back gently, careful not to crease it. "It needs work but as an idea, it's very you. Personal, religious, symbolic, it's got all that crap you could want. You should get it."

 

Kurt tries not to smile like an idiot as he stares down at the table, scrubbing at his face with his hands. “You don’t think zhey’ll laugh at me if I bring zhat in? I’m really no artist.”

 

"It's their job to do the art. You just have to have the idea. If they laugh I'll knock out their teeth," Logan promises. "Get it. I'll come with if you want."

 

Kurt presses his knuckles into his smile and takes the paper back with a nod. He leans across the table to give Logan a kiss, his heart pounding. He’s not sure how he got lucky enough to land someone so supportive and caring, even if he does have the emotional range of a hedgehog.


	7. Chapter 7

The tattoo artist doesn’t laugh at Kurt’s drawing at all. He does think at first that the tattoo is for “the big guy” but after recognizing his mistake, he seems impressed by it. Foremost he’s thankful that Kurt actually has a solid idea coming in, rather than showing up with a ‘well what do _you_ think would look good’ attitude.

 

Kurt and Logan go out to lunch while the artist draws up a couple sketches, and it doesn’t escape either of them how remarkably like a date it is. And maybe… _maybe_ it’s kind of nice to not be stared at. They sit outside a café, it’s a beautiful day, and the people walking by aren’t pointing or staring at Kurt. He might have built up a tolerance to it, to the point where most of the time he didn’t even notice. But it’s so remarkable to be outside and not be looked at like a fairground attraction.

 

After lunch they go back to the tattoo artist and look through the possible designs. Logan keeps his input limited to pointing at his favorite and muttering "that one" because he doesn't see what else needs to be said. Eventually Kurt settles on it as his preferred design too and the artist leads them into the back.

 

Logan makes sure to take the artist aside while Kurt gets settled in the chair to tell him about the sensitivity of the younger man's skin and make it known, in no uncertain terms, what he'll if he dares laugh or comment if Kurt starts to cry from the pain.

 

The stencil is laid out across Kurt’s bicep, it takes up almost the full length from his shoulder to his elbow. Logan tries to talk him into downsizing it twice before Kurt finally reminds him that he used to cut his body from end to end on a weekly basis, and Logan shuts up.

 

Kurt doesn’t even flinch at the needles. He screws up his nose sometimes at the pressure and heat, but mostly he just carries on a conversation with the artist like Logan isn’t even there. Occasionally he’ll turn his attention to Logan to ask how it’s coming so far. He decided to go for a mostly black and white image, with some splashes of green in the thorns, hints of red in the rosary beads, and the three-fingered hands tinted, of course, blue.

 

The entire tattoo takes almost five hours to complete, with a break in the middle when Kurt’s arm became too sore to continue for a while. By the time it’s done he does have tears in his eyes, but they don’t fall until he actually sees the tattoo in the mirror. He’s handed a few tissues by another artist in the shop before it’s taped over with gauze and he’s given instructions for how to keep it clean so it’ll heal properly.

 

Kurt spends the next several days picking at the tape, but Logan is always nearby, his faithful guard dog, discouraging him from taking the gauze off 25 times a day for everyone who wants to see his tattoo.

 

When the gauze does come off the tattoo is scabby and gross but it's clearly going to be beautiful when it's healed. Even Logan says so when he first sees it but he makes sure to follow up with a comment on how bad it looks right now, for good measure.

 

It's in a sort of awkward place to Logan is enlisted to help with the cleaning and applying lotion several times a day. He complains and curses Kurt's neediness until he's kissed into submission and goes about his work without anymore fuss.

 

It takes another couple weeks for the tattoo to fully heal. By now, Kurt’s almost got fingers mastered, even if he drops things sometimes. He doesn’t trip anymore, and he rarely every flies into fits of rage. It seems like everything is evening out.

 

When a peaceful pro-mutant rally is organized nearby, Kurt is contacted by the people putting it together and asked to come speak for them about the emotional repercussions of “curing” your very soul. He accepts readily, and even the Professor seems proud of his willingness to go out in public and talk about this.

 

He’s amazed by how many people recognize him at the event. He’s almost always getting his hands shaken and his shoulders touched and so many young mutants want to have their picture taken with him. He decides to put aside his disagreement with photography for the day in order to give young people the mementos they need to remind themselves they can be loved.

 

Of course, he’s joined by several of the others. Ororo, Logan, and Kitty are quite excited to be there, Rogue and Bobby can hardly contain themselves, the Professor came along and even managed to drag Scott out of the depths.

 

The whole thing has been organized in protest of a bill that is trying to be passed, legalizing the unwilling curing of mutants deemed “dangerous” on a case-by-case basis. Kurt can’t help but feel personally responsible for part of this, since he’s the first successful case on the Gamma-level that opened up the possibility of curing people with beautiful differences.

 

Kurt's time to speak gets closer and closer but it becomes more and more apparent that the crowd is wearing on Logan. The people and noises and smells are playing merry hell with his heightened senses and it doesn't take long before he can't take it anymore. Announcing to everyone that 'parades and rallies are shit' and that someone needs to go home and check on the kids they all decided to leave behind he takes his leave. Of course he takes the time to pull Kurt aside for a quick apology and a good luck kiss after making Ororo promise to get his whole speech on film.

 

It's a decision he'll later come to regret because it means he isn't there when the fighting starts.

 

Everybody sort of though the MRD might show up, they even planned for it and had defenses. But nobody expected how hard and fast they would come down on the rally. They came with tanks and stun guns and collars, nets and flash grenades. Mutants scrambled like insects, helping one another to escape.

 

Kurt is separated from the others, but he knows they’ll be able to take care of themselves as he sets his mind to helping as many mutants escape as he can. He lowers several young mutants into the sewers and shows a frantic group where to run to get around the fray. At one point he’s grabbed by one of the MRD, but a quick scan from the man’s machine on his wrist confirms “human” and he’s told to ‘go find some place safe, sir, we’ll handle this outbreak.’

 

Outbreak, Kurt thinks with a scoff as he shows a mutant with levitating powers how to take a group of people to safety. Everything was going just fine and peacefully before the MRD showed up. Mutants were singing together and feeling united and proud and free. They weren’t attacking anybody.

 

He’s scanned several more times while helping mutants escape the aggressive unwilling capture and registration attempts of the MRD. It gets to the point that when he’s grabbed, he feigns a terrified and lost civilian and begs them to tell him where he can go to be free of the MRD and this whole debacle, unwittingly getting information from them on where to send mutants to be safe.

 

By the time Logan finds out about this and rushes back, the whole place is deserted. Everything is knocked over helter-skelter, and papers are blowing across the empty block they’d had pinioned for the event. Nobody is in sight. Least of all Kurt.

 

Panic sets in and Logan goes into a frenzy. He tries to catch Kurt's scent, rushing through the whole of the deserted grounds to find it and several times he thinks he's picked up the trail only to have it muddied by the lingering scents of the crowd and their collective fear.

 

Roaring with rage and fear he gives up on the grounds and starts searching nearby streets, hunting in ever widening circles hoping for any sign of his lover or even their friends. But there's nothing.

 

He knows there's no use in searching the whole city and if Kurt did get away he'd have gone home where it was safe. Angry and bitter at his defeat Logan finds a cab to take him home where he hopes the younger man will be waiting.

 

But Kurt isn’t there either. The others are, along with a large number of mutants from the rally who are using the school as a safe haven while they wait for their loved ones they were separated from to come find them. He talks to Kitty and Scott and Ororo and all of them tell him the same thing – as soon as they fighting broke out, they lost sight of Kurt.

 

“I figured he would have run off seeing as he’s… well…” Scott clears his throat.

 

“Useless? Is that what you were gonna say?” Logan challenges.

 

Ororo puts her hand on Logan’s shoulder to get him to back down before he starts swinging. “We’ll help you look for him,” she says comfortingly.

 

Logan growls but relaxes his fists. Fighting now won't help Kurt. There will be time for that later, when there aren't so many young and impressionable mutants to witness his violence and get the wrong idea about the school.

 

Instead he goes to find the professor who is being treated by Hank for minor injuries he'd sustained when the crowd started to panic and flee.

 

"They wouldn't have taken him. They'd have no reason to," he says as he bursts into the professor's office.

 

“Close the door please, Logan,” Xavier says calmly. Logan slams it shut, Hank flinches. “If you give me a few minutes you can accompany me down to Cerebro and we’ll see if we can find him, how does that sound?”

 

"Great thanks. Would have been better if you guys hadn't lost him in the first place," Logan growls. He starts to pace back and forth in front of the professor's desk. "There's nothing they could do with him anyway. He's human now why would they hurt him?"

 

Xavier sighs. “Please sit down before you wear a hole in my carpet,” he says as he extends his hand for Hank to wrap in gauze. “In the interest of full disclosure… there’s quite a lot they could want with him. He likely has reams of data coded directly into his DNA that they could harvest and use in their plight to destroy mutantkind.”

 

Logan goes pale. "And you let him get away from you? They could be torturing him or dissecting him right now! Why the fuck did you let me leave early?"

 

“I didn’t _let_ him get away,” Xavier clears his throat and taps the arm of his wheelchair. “Leaving early was your choice. Please don’t misdirect your anger over your choices onto me or anybody else.”

 

“You’re good now,” Hank informs the Professor after pressing gently on a tiny bandaid on his forehead one more time to make sure it stays.

 

“Logan, if you please?” Xavier indicates for Logan to stalk after him.

 

Logan continues pacing behind the Professor in Cerebro while he sits silently and looks around. He’s quiet for a very long time.

 

“What’s taking you so long?” Logan says impatiently. The more time passes, the more he becomes convinced that Kurt is either dead, or something terrible is happening to him.

 

“I’m not used to Kurt’s human signature,” Xavier says evenly. “It could take me a while to find him.”

 

"You'd know if he was dead right?" Logan questions. He knows he shouldn't break the professor's concentration but he has to know if Kurt is alright.

 

“Even dead people still exist,” Xavier says coolly. “The only way I would be unable to find him is if he took a detour into another dimension, or he stole Magneto’s helmet.”

 

Logan eventually tires of pacing after another ten minutes and he sits on the edge of the walkway and dangles his feet. He stares at his knees and tries to contemplate what it might mean for him if Kurt is dead.

 

Logan has seen a lot of people die. He's killed a lot of people, he's outlived even more. He's had lovers over the decades he's been alive. He's said goodbye to a lot of them, either because of time going by or through violence. He knew sooner of later he'd have to say goodbye to Kurt. It's why for a long time he fought having feelings for the man and tried to keep things just sex.

 

But it isn't just sex, it hasn't been for a long time. And for the second time in months there's a chance Kurt might be lost to him forever. He isn't ready for that. They were supposed to have years left together, whether or not Kurt was human. He isn't ready to face the fact that he might have to say goodbye to someone else he loves.

 

But if he does he'll make those responsible for it pay. No matter what it takes or who he has to fight beside to get the job done.

 

“I found him.”

 

Logan is jarred out of his malevolent thoughts so abruptly he almost falls right off the catwalk. “Is he alive?!” he shouts as he jumps to his feet.

 

“He’s alive,” Xavier says thoughtfully. “And what’s more, he hasn’t even been captured. It looks like… he’s petitioning. For the release of the mutants who couldn’t escape the MRD.”

 

"Where is he," Logan demands, rather than asks. He's already on his feet and half way to the door before Charles has a chance to speak.

 

“He’s at the NYC Police headquarters,” Xavier calls after him, and his words have Logan halting in his tracks. “I would suggest heartily against going to him.”

 

“Why in the hell wouldn’t I – ”

 

“As far as the police are aware, he’s a human,” Xavier says as quickly as he can to try and get his words out before Logan decides to run. “And they’ll be willing to listen to a human’s account of the proceedings. They’ll hear from a human’s perspective how the mutants were unfairly treated and captured under duress. He’ll be a lot more likely to succeed in his attempts if you _aren’t there_ , Logan.”

 

Logan snarls angrily and slams his fist against the door. "I can't just sit here! I have to see him and make sure he's alright! I don't care what you say Professor I need to see it for myself."

 

“ _Logan_.” The Professor’s voice is loud and stern. “Kurt isn’t helpless. Even now, he’s one of the strongest men you and I both know. He’s not in danger, and he doesn’t need rescuing. If you barge in there with your claws and teeth bared growling like a wild animal you’ll discredit everything Kurt is trying to accomplish. He’s trying to convince the police that the mutants stolen aren’t a danger to society. You’ll undermine that if you start throwing threats around and circling like a vulture.”

 

Logan's shoulders sag and he hangs his head. Xavier is right. He'll fuck everything up if he goes storming in demanding to see Kurt and threatening anyone who gets in his way but he can't just sit and wait.

 

"I'll wait outside the station. I just can't stay here and do nothing," Logan says, hoping the compromise won't be met with further scolding.

 

Xavier gives an echoing sigh. “Alright. I trust you will. Be on your best behavior, and don’t go inside.”

 

Logan gives him a nod before streaking out of the school. He doesn’t stop running even when his lungs burn and his legs ache and when his eyes water and start to run, it’s because of the wind.


	8. Chapter 8

“Logan?”

 

Logan whips around at the familiar voice and sees Kurt heading down the long marble staircase behind him, pulling his coat on as the afternoon wears into evening. Kurt looks utterly exhausted, like he would want nothing more than to just collapse in bed for twelve hours.

 

As soon as he's within reach Logan grabs the front of his shirt and pulls Kurt into a tight embrace, squeezing him hard enough to be painful. He doesn't let go immediately like he usually would, he just holds on, not caring who will see them.

 

"You fucker I thought you died," he growls. "If you ever do something like this again I'll wring your tiny little neck do you understand me? I was looking for you for hours."

 

“I told Rouge I was going to zhe police,” Kurt wheezes, but runs his hands through Logan’s hair and cradles him close against his chest. “Didn’t she tell you?”

 

“Rogue wasn’t at the school,” Logan mutters worriedly.

 

“Damn. Zhey must have gotten her, zhen. Vell, it doesn’t matter. I got zhe police on my side. Zhey’re going to have zhe MRD release everyone zhey took today,” Kurt says, cupping Logan’s face with a smile.

 

"Yeah that's great, shut up for a minute. You have a phone. I know you don't like texting with your new fingers but you're going to if something like this happens again. I don't care what you say, even if it's just 'hey asshole I'm alive' but you tell me. I thought you were dead or worse. I almost punched the Professor because he didn't find you fast enough," Logan rants, still holding tight to Kurt. "I'm not leaving again but if we get separated you tell me you're alright and where you are."

 

Kurt agrees quietly and kisses Logan’s forehead. He decides not to mention that he lost his cell phone in the fray.

 

They catch a cab back to the school, and Kurt falls asleep sideways on Logan. He wakes up when they arrive just long enough to ask Logan to carry him inside. He meant it half as a joke, but when Logan actually lifts him, he doesn’t argue.

 

He sleeps for a solid thirteen hours, and when he wakes up he’s sore as hell. Rogue is back by the time he wakes up, with all sorts of first-hand delighted accounts of just how angry the MDR looked when they were forced to release the 68 mutants they’d captured.

 

“I heard you were responsible for getting us all out,” she says, leaning over the table to where Kurt is pondering his cereal. “You’re a real hero, Mr. Human.”

 

He smiles sleepily up at her. “You really think so?”

 

“Absolutely. You got any idea how many frantic parents just got their kids back? There’s more than one kind of hero, Kurt. You don’t gotta have super powers to be Superman.”

 

Her words affect him more than she probably realized. In the days that follow, he’s happier than he’s ever been since his change. He’s never in a bad mood it seems, and he’s always looking to be around people. His entire attitude has changed, he spends as much time as he can helping people. Anything from tutoring to carrying something heavy to holding a door open. If it can be done, and he’s nearby, he’s doing it.

  
This often runs him into the ground and by bedtime he’s completely exhausted, but he’s so satisfied. He feels _useful_ again. And Logan always rubs the knots out of his back and hips, so that’s extra-nice.

 

Logan is proud to see Kurt so happy and comfortable in his new body. He seems almost back to his old self again, maybe even happier than before and it warms the heart to see him running around trying to help everyone with everything like an overgrown boy scout.

 

He might be alright, Logan realizes one day while watching Kurt working with some of the students on their homework. Even if they never get him back to the way he was before, he might be able to take it now that he knows he isn't useless. Logan's words alone could never have convinced him before but now that he's proved it to himself he seems to believe it.

 

And they'll still have years together. He can watch Kurt grow old and take care of him in the meantime. It's not the long life they could have shared but it's better than nothing. They'll make it work somehow and make the short time worth it.

 

There’s only one thing still holding Kurt back. In all his cheer and good fortune, there’s one thing that still nags at the back of his mind that’s keeping him from absolutely welcoming this new change and accepting it for the rest of his life. This one dark thought haunts him when he’s alone, and keeps him from being totally comfortable.

 

And that’s the possibility remaining that he might be able to change back. This whole war with his identity has been murder. First he felt like a wounded soldier sent home when he could still fight, and then he was a helpless child frightened and alone, and then he became some sort of Messiah in the mutant public’s eye. If he were like this for the rest of his life – even if that’s not a very long time – he would be able to stand it.

 

But that though remains. _What if_.

 

It nags him for weeks. He tries to ignore it, he tries to accept himself as he is now. He tries to think of a change back as a miracle, not a goal. But it keeps him up at night and frays his nerves. He breaks one night after a nightmare – he was unable to save Logan from death by being crushed because he couldn’t teleport anymore. He woke in a sweat and turned over to cling to Logan in his sleep and tried not to cry.

 

He slips away from school the following lunch period and heads to the lower levels of the school, seeking out Forge. He finds him in his usual scattered laboratory, with the familiar machine that changed Kurt human off in the corner.

 

“Forge,” he clears his throat, and the young man flinches. “How is zhe, ah…” he looks over at the machine in the corner. It looks utterly untouched. “Zhe machine coming along? Have you made progress?”

 

“Oh, uh, er,” Forge coughs and covers a few papers on the desk he’s sitting at (one of several in the room) with other papers. “It’s, erm, it’s good- it’s fine- going well, I mean, I just eh, I hit a roadblock or seven it’s, um…”

 

Kurt’s eyes narrow. “Forge,” he says scoldingly, like a parent. “You’re a terrible liar.”

 

Forge looks from side to side nervously. “Look, it’s not- I didn’t make the decision, okay, the Professor did!”

 

“Vhat decision?” Kurt says, his tone going sharp and dangerous.

 

Forge stammers for a few more seconds before Kurt’s hand comes slamming down on the desk and sends pencils scattering. He sighs and his shoulders droop. “I finished weeks ago,” he mutters. “It’s done.”

 

Kurt feels like he’s been hit in the chest by a bullet. He forgets how to breathe, how to speak, he almost falls over he’s so stunned. His body goes icy and weightless as Forge’s words swirl around in his head. And then the weight returns to him and that ice turns to fire.

 

“ _Vhat!?_ ” he shouts. “You _finished?!_ Zhe Professor _knows_ zhis?!”

 

“He said he has his reasons!” Forge throws his hands up like he’s afraid Kurt is going to hit him. “For- for not telling you, I mean.”

 

Kurt doesn’t hear him. He turns on his heel and wheels out of the basement. He doesn’t take the elevator, he has too much nervous energy. He tears up the stairs like they’re on fire and charges through the halls with the devil in his eyes. He completely ignores Logan when he greets Logan in the hall, shouldering past him and making a beeline directly for the Professor’s office looking murderous.

 

"Please shut the door Mr. Wagner, the whole school does not need to hear this," Xavier says when Kurt slams open the door to his office, without even looking up at the man. He finishes reading the form in front of him and signs it before setting it aside to turn his attention to the fuming figure above him.

 

“It’s finished! And you _knew!_ ” Kurt says, even though he knows he doesn’t need to.

 

“I did,” the Professor says, with no intention of lying.

 

“ _Vhy?!_ ” Kurt screams. All the betrayal and rage he’s feeling bleeds out into his voice giving it a furious, desperate lilt.

 

The Professor sighs and folds his hands on his desk. “You recall how painful it was to turn human,” he says. “We almost lost you. You were on your deathbed for two weeks before you woke up. And that was the easy part. Changing back will be much more grueling, a thousand times more painful, and the likelihood you could die in the process is great.”

 

“Zhat doesn’t tell me vhy you hid it from me!” Kurt bellows, shaking with rage and hurt and confusion.

 

“I wanted you to see that you can function and be happy as a human,” the Professor looks down at his hands for a moment before meeting Kurt’s eyes again. “Before you made the decision to possibly kill yourself trying to change back. I wanted you to have all the information you could.”

 

Outside the room Logan is listening carefully that the door, practically shaking with repressed rage. He understands Xavier's reasoning, and with the possibility of Kurt dying lying before them he might have done the same. But that doesn't excuse the Professor's choice to allow Kurt to worry and suffer all this time.

 

Inside Charles looks up at Kurt, trying to find some sign of understanding in his enraged expression. "I am aware that I took advantage of your trust. I would not have done so if I did not think it to be in yours, and Logan's, best interests. You have a decision to make now but you have others to take into account when you finally settle on a path."

 

Kurt hurtles out of the office so forcefully he actually knocks Logan over with the door, and doesn’t even pause to look back as he heads down the hallway and disappears. The Professor sighs and massages his temples.

 

“Either come in or don’t,” he says, addressing the thunderstuck mutant still standing behind the door. “But please close the door when you make up your mind. I feel a headache coming on.”

 

"You fucked up Chuck, you know that?" Logan says from outside the door. "You really fucked up this time. He's not going to trust you again for a long time."

 

“I’m aware,” Xavier sighs and temples his fingers in front of him to rest his forehead on them. “Perhaps he’ll listen to reason if it comes from you. Forge and Hank have been working together and they’ve come up with a number. There’s a 70% chance that he’ll _die_ if he tries to change back.”

 

Logan can't breathe. There's only a thirty percent chance Kurt will live, and he has a pretty good idea what choice he’ll make. It's far too small to want to risk it but he knows, deep down, that it’s ultimately Kurt's choice.

 

"I'll talk to him." Logan says before turning and walking away. Xavier sighs loudly when he leaves the door open behind him.

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	9. Chapter 9

Unfortunately, Kurt doesn’t much feel like talking over the next couple days. He does an awful lot of hiding alone and thinking, though. Whenever Logan tries to confront him, Kurt warns him that he’s not currently in his right mind and it’s way too likely he might say something in anger that he’d regret.

 

He’s distracted in his classes, giving his student free time to talk to each other, mostly, only loosely assigning them subjects to discuss and making no real effort to police their conversations. He doesn’t even sleep normal hours. He’s not in bed by the time Logan goes to bed, and he’s gone by morning – if he even climbed into bed at all.

 

Logan allows him three days of moping and hiding before he corners him in the attic after dinner. Placing himself firmly in front of the stairs he allows Kurt no other option than to listen to him.

 

"Enough. You can be mad at the professor as long as you want but I'm not him. So you're going to listen to me and stop acting like a brat, got it?"

 

Kurt doesn’t acknowledge him, but he doesn’t tell him to get lost, either. He’s sitting on a dusty old love seat he pushed up to one of the windows with a view of the gardens out back. His knees are up against his chest and his arms are wrapped tightly around them as he stares hard out the window. Logan can almost _see_ his tail twitching irritably.

 

"Charles lied. He lied to you for your own good and it was wrong. I got that. But it's not my fault and he has a point," Logan starts. He isn't sure where to go with this but so far he seems to be doing alright. "You're happy now. You have to decide if this happy is good enough or if you want to risk your life on a 30% chance that you can go back to how you were before."

 

Kurt looks over at him. This is clearly the first time he’s hearing this statistic. His jaw flexes when he clenches it, but he says nothing and turns his head to look back out the window.

 

His instinct is to say of course it’s worth it, 30% is higher than zero, and he’d give anything to go back to the way he was. Of course ‘anything’ never really included his _life_. If the choice is between being an alive human and a dead mutant, the choice is clear.

 

But he misses the way things were. He misses what he was capable of. He misses being able to walk barefoot and never hassling with his own fingers. He’s tired of mishearing things and getting headaches from the light.

 

But he doesn’t want to die. Suddenly he understands the foreboding feeling he had weeks ago, the fear that he was going to die soon.

 

"I don't want you to die," Logan says quietly, looking away. "But I want you to be happy so it's up to you. But you have to know the facts and the odds aren't in your favor, pal. Not even close. So think about it a little. There's a lot you can do as a human you can't as a mutant."

 

“Name one thing,” Kurt says wearily.

 

"Setting those mutants free after the rally. Saving the ones who were there before they could get captured," Logan shoots back immediately. "You saved their lives, no superpowers involved. I couldn't do that. Even Xavier couldn't."

 

“I could have saved more if I could teleport,” Kurt says bitterly. “I vould have been twice as fast.”

 

Logan rolls his eyes. "You would have been stunned and hauled into a truck with the rest of them. If you'd even been at the rally. You were invited because of all of this."

 

Kurt covers his face with a sigh. “I don’t vant to be human,” he says quietly. “I haven’t vanted it since zhe very beginning. Zhe only reason I’ve been happy at all vas because I didn’t think changing back vas an option. I thought his vas all I had to vork vith.”

 

"It's a lot to work with. You've made something good out of a really shitty situation. But if you want to risk it to be yourself again I won't stop you," Logan says. He tries not to think about seeing Kurt strapped to that machine again, writhing in pain and maybe never waking up again. But the image comes to mind anyway and he has to close his eyes to try to block it out.

 

“I’ll think about it some more,” Kurt whispers, resting his forehead on his knees. “I’ll make my decision by zhe veekend. Please just… leave me in peace until zhen. I don’t need your facts or your guilt or your good intentions confusing me.”

 

"Yeah okay. Come find me when you decide." Logan sighs as he turns and descends the stairs, leaving Kurt alone with his thoughts.

 

They don’t talk very much for a couple days. Things are tense and awkward between them. Kurt doesn’t avoid him, but he doesn’t talk when they’re together, and he’s clearly so deep in thought that Logan doesn’t want to speak.

 

He spends a lot of time staring into space. Sometimes he seems like he’s fallen asleep with his eyes open. Which might be possible, since he’s been having a hell of a time sleeping. He wakes Logan up more than once in the night with his thrashing and frustrated noises before he inevitably leaves the bedroom to try and encourage tiredness to come to him.

 

Kurt doesn’t want to leave Logan behind if he dies. But he knows that Logan will be okay if he does. Logan is always okay. He was going to outlive Kurt anyway, by hundreds of years. Kurt tries to imagine what Logan’s life would be like without him in it. How long he’d mourn, if he’d visit his grave, if he’d be angry and curse Kurt’s memory.

 

He stays awake at night looking at him. He tries to memorize every single whisker on his cheeks, every single line on his lips, every eyelash around his eyes. He wants to burn this face into the very energy of his being so that if he dies and his life goes scattering out into the vastness of space, wherever he next reincarnates, he’ll remember Logan.

 

Logan hasn’t been sleeping well either. He has so many nightmares that he sometimes can’t even tell if he’s awake or not. Every morning he’s afraid Kurt will tell him he’s made the decision to climb in that machine. Sleeping on Friday night was nearly impossible.

 

He’s awoken – or maybe he isn’t, he can’t even tell – with a hand on his arm. It’s still dark out, but just barely. The sky has started to turn lighter blue outside the windows. Kurt’s scent wafts around him as he leans over the older man in his sleeping state.

 

“I love you,” he half-hears Kurt whisper. He feels a kiss to his cheek (he thinks he feels it) and Kurt’s breath over his ear. “You’ll be okay.”

 

His eyes snap open. The light in the windows has brightened considerably. Kurt isn’t beside him, and he can’t tell his dreams from reality.

 

Logan jumps out of bed and pulls on a pair of sweat pants, forgoing a shirt entirely, and races through the mansion to the lab where the machine is waiting, praying that he won't find Kurt already strapped in or worse, already gone.

 

He bursts through the doors into what he's sure is one of his nightmares. The machine is on and inside it he can see Kurt, eyes half shut, partially rolled back so only a sliver of white is showing. He's shaking, seemingly in pain and Logan howls and rushes forward, only to be caught and held back by Hank.

 

"Turn it off!" he bellows, fighting the larger mutant. "Get him out now!"

 

Hank picks Logan up by the shoulders to still his thrashings. Forge is over by the machine and clicks a sequence of buttons that makes the low humming surge faster, and Kurt _screams_.

 

“We can’t stop it now that it’s started,” Hank says apologetically. “It has to be completed now, or never. If we stop halfway, he’ll never be able to make it back to mutanity. I would have thought you knew this was happening. He said you did.”

 

"He never said anything. He told me he would tell me when he decided and he didn't say anything!" Logan is shouting over Hank now, over Kurt’s agonize screams, towards the machine. All of his fury and fear is directed at Kurt. "He left. He just left me there I didn't get to say goodbye!"

 

 _I never got to tell him I love him_ , he thinks, tears in his eyes. Now he might never get the chance.

 

Hank shakes his head and sets Logan back down on his feet. “I’m sorry, Logan. But the shock of stopping in the middle would probably kill him. This has to take its course. Whatever course that may be.”

 

“Kurt told us yesterday that he knew he’d made up his mind, said something about ‘preparations’ to make first and Hank and I pulled an all-nighter trying to make last minute adjustments to the machine. We’ve probably improved his chances from 30% to… 34%” Forge says without looking up from the machine. He has to speak loudly to be heard over Kurt’s screams of anguish.

 

Hank reaches over to a desk and picks up an envelope. “Kurt said he knew you’d rush out of bed to come see him too fast to see this if he left it beside the bed,” he says, holding it out to Logan.

 

Logan takes the envelope and is tempted to throw it away, or tears it up. He doesn't want to see what Kurt was too cowardly to say in person. He doesn't want to read his goodbyes and not be able to respond.

 

But he doesn't do any of those things. He clutches the letter tight in his trembling hands, staring at Kurt and trying not to listen to him scream. There are tears in his eyes that he tries to blink away but they fall despite his efforts and land on the paper as he opens the envelope.

 

The handwriting is shaky. Not surprising, given Kurt’s newfound finger struggles. But the fact that he took the time to write at all means something.

 

_My Dear Logan,_

_I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you. By now, I’m either already in the machine making the change back, or I’m dead. Either way, I’m sorry. I know you won’t want my apologies. I know you’re furious with me. But hopefully you’ll understand that I’m not doing this to hurt you._

_I’m frightened. I know you are, as well. Our time hasn’t been terribly long, but it’s been so meaningful. If I pass into Heaven today, I will carry your memory with me for eternity, or at least until the day somebody figures out how to kill you, and you join me. I’m scared to die, but I’m also scared to live as a human. I made my mind up days ago, and spent this week trying to change it. I don’t want you to think this means that I don’t love you enough, and I hope you don’t think me too selfish._

_Whether I live or die, I know you’ll be angry with me. I won’t blame you if you decide never to speak to me again. I won’t ask you to stay if you want to leave. I know you feel as betrayed as I did when I found out the possibility of my return to mutantkind had been kept from me._

_The reason I came here without you is because I knew that if you were with me, I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. I would be too scared to leave you behind. I want to live forever with you, but I can’t do it as a human. And if you were with me, I would have made the choice for you, and not for me, and that isn’t fair for either of us. I would resent you subconsciously for the rest of my life._

_If I die today, I wish you as much time as you need to recover and find somebody new. I know you’ll be okay without me. You’ve always been okay._

_I hope some day you’ll be able to forgive me for this._

_I love you,_

_Kurt_

Reading with Kurt’s screams as background noise leaves Logan dizzy. He reads the note once, then again and again, as if hoping the words will change and prove that this isn't real. It's another nightmare, a terrible awful dream and any minute he'll wake up with Kurt beside him, whole and alive and happy.

 

But the words don't change and Kurt's screams don't fade and in a mix of despair and fury Logan balls up the note and tosses it aside before storming out of the lab. Behind him the doors close but don't entirely block out the sound of his pained howls as he beats the walls in frustration.

 

Kurt is gone. Probably. There's every chance that last night was their last night together and they didn't even speak. He didn't kiss Kurt goodnight or hold him while they slept or tell him how beautiful he is in the moonlight that filters through the window. He'd always wanted to tell him but never had the guts to do it. Just like he'd never had the guts to say how much he loves Kurt out loud.

 

He collapses against the wall and crouches to the floor, cradling his head between his knees and trying to block out the screams. Kurt’s voice sounds raw, terrified, animalistic. He’s sobbing, he even hears Kurt beg the machine to be turned off. But either Forge and Hank ignore him, or Kurt told them ahead of time to keep going even if he asks for them to stop.

 

It’s getting to be too much. He’s never heard Kurt scream like this before. He can imagine the kind of pain he’s in, it’s probably close to what he felt when he was being injected with molten metal. But even he didn’t scream like this. Kurt’s always been so strong and steadfast, he’s never been the kind to scream or cry while hurting. Logan saw him take a sawblade to the ribs once and he didn’t even scream.

 

He doesn’t know how long he stays crouched in that hallway. But apparently Kurt is screaming loud enough that he’s being heard in the upper levels of the school, because Rogue and Ororo come sprinting down the hall in their pajamas and nightgown respectively.

 

“Is he – ” Rogue asks Logan out of breath, bent over on her knees while Kitty phases through the ceiling and lands beside them.

 

Logan nods. "He's in that damn machine. He made his choice and now he has to live or die with it. He chose this; it's his own goddamn fault he's in pain!"

 

He doesn't mean it but the anger is pouring out anyway and there's nothing he can do to stop it.

 

"I'm _glad_ it hurts! He chose to risk his life and he didn't even have the guts to say goodbye!"

 

Rogue and Ororo exchange pitying looks, and the older woman steps into the laboratory followed by Kitty, while Rogue takes a seat beside Logan with a few inches of space between them.

 

“I’m sorry it had to happen like this,” she says, folding her arms over her knees and resting her chin on them. “But you know, even if he… if he don’t make it, you won’t be alone.”

 

"Oh fuck off," Logan growls. Immediately after he sighs and hangs his head. "Sorry kid. I know you mean well I just... I don't want to lose him like this. It always ends up like this and I'm sick of it."

 

She lays a gloved hand comfortingly on his arm. “Maybe someday you’ll find someone else immortal to be with,” she says hopefully.

 

Logan’s ears are ringing. Suddenly he realizes, it’s because Kurt’s screaming has stopped altogether.

 

"I don't want anyone else," he says as he jumps to his feet.

 

He doesn't wait for a response before rushing back into the lab, his heart pounding hard in his chest. He's stopped screaming. That could be a very good or a very bad sign.

 

His eyes go immediately to Kurt as he crosses the threshold and he sees immediately that he's blue again. His skin is the same as it had been until they found him months ago, screaming and writhing in the very same machine. His tail is back, limp between his legs. His hands are normal, his ears. The straps binding him to the machine have been undone.

 

But his eyes are closed. And he isn't breathing.

 

Logan rushes forward and grabs at Kurt, pushing the others out of the way to take the young mutant in his arms. He can't hear a heartbeat and his shaking fingers don't find a pulse.

 

“Logan,” Hank says cautiously. “We knew this might happen.”

 

Logan doesn’t hear him. Kurt is absolutely limp in his arms. One of his hands slips off the edge of the machine’s table, his three fingers hang curled loosely. His head drops back and his lips part slightly, but no breath leaves him. He’s _dead_.

 

"You killed him," Logan says, staring down at Kurt's cold, blank face. Just yesterday that face was full of life. He was quiet, deep in thought, but he was alive. There was light in his eyes and breath on his lips and now it’s gone and it's all so wrong.

 

Logan will never get used to holding dead bodies. It doesn't matter how many times he's had to do it before, it never gets easier. Especially when the body belongs to someone he loved so fiercely.

 

"No, no," he growls, "You let him kill himself. You knew this would happen and you didn't try to stop him."

 

“Logan,” Ororo says, her voice serious. “Run him out back. There may still be time to save him.”

 

Logan doesn’t seem to hear her. He’s crouched over Kurt, trying to part his messy hair the way he always wore it.

 

“Logan!” Ororo shouts, her eyes sparking. “Take him to the gardens! _Now!_ ”

 

Logan looks up at her and sees the hope in her face and doesn't ask questions. He turns to the door and runs, Kurt's body hanging limp in his arms. He doesn’t breathe, he doesn’t think, he doesn't stop until they're outside in the gardens.

 

Ororo takes Kurt’s body from Logan, the others are hot on their heels. She lays him in the grass with his head and shoulders across her lap. Looking heavenward, she raises her hands and the cloud-speckled morning sky darkens with heavy swirling clouds. She beckons a single bolt of lightning down into her palms and catches it.

 

Logan watches, shaking, as she manipulates the bolt until it’s smaller and smaller, contained only between her two hands, and then without warning, she slams her electrified palms down on Kurt’s chest.

 

Golden eyes snap open as his body lurches and he takes in a rough, ragged breath just as the clouds overhead crack open and begin to pour.

 

Logan kneels down beside Kurt and Ororo in the wet grass and reaches out one shaking hand to touch Kurt's cheek. A small shock has him jerking back his fingers but he tries again and this time manages to place his hand on the cool flesh.

 

"Kurt?"

 

Kurt’s eyes open again, golden and glowing in the darkened garden. Ororo passes the exhausted mutant into Logan’s arms and steps into the shelter of the patio roof before her white night gown gets inappropriately wet.

 

Kurt is panting and trembling, staring around blearily and confused. “Vhere… are ve?” he asks hoarsely, his voice destroyed from screaming. “Did it… did it vork?” He tries to move his tail, and with a surge of exhilaration, he feels it flop feebly in the wet grass. He gives a breathy, tired laugh and closes his eyes, flexing his hands and feet to find his three digits restored.

 

"You died," Logan chokes out. He's barely holding Kurt any more, the man is just sort of lying in his arms. He feels like every muscle in his body is full of lead and he doesn't have the strength to move even enough to tighten his grip.

 

"You _died._ " he repeats louder, looking out into the rain, then down at Kurt. "You left me without saying goodbye and you _died._ "

 

That’s news to him, but Kurt just gives a sad sort of smile and reaches up to cup Logan’s cheek. “I know. I’m sorry,” he whispers, wiping what he’s pretty sure is a tear rather than a raindrop. They’re both silent for a while, just staring at each other in the rain. Neither of them want to move, content to sit with one another in the quiet and the rain. Neither of them even register the group of women nearby.

 

“Hey,” Kurt whispers to get Logan’s attention after his eyes have been closed for a couple minutes. “Let’s get married.”

 

"No," Logan says, shaking his head. "No way. You don't get to leave me, die and then propose in less than an hour. Do you know how fucking angry I am at you? I shouldn't even be speaking to you."

 

Kurt laughs tearfully and sits up with some struggle to give Logan a drenched kiss. “Alright,” he whispers against his lips, bumping their noses together. “I’ll get a ring first.”

 

"I love you." Logan whispers, his grip finally tightening so he can hold Kurt against his chest. He drops his head so it rest against the other man's and repeats himself. "I love you. And I'm never letting you go again."

 

Kurt can’t reply before he’s finally swarmed by girls. He’s crushed between four sets of arms that all squeeze the tears right out of him. Someone’s knee is on his tail and the awkward angle is cutting the circulation off to his feet and his fur is matting down awkwardly, freezing cold and soaking wet. But he’s never been happier in his entire life.

 

The Professor is in the hall when they go back inside. His face is a war of emotion, but he opens his arms for an embrace with no regard to Kurt’s dripping wet body. He apologizes to Xavier with a shaking voice and holds him for almost a full minute, thanking him for making him really think.

 

He’s not left alone once all day. Everyone has questions, everyone wants to be near him. He’s so grateful for all the people in his life, but when it becomes too much, he can escape to be with Logan. Logan’s anger doesn’t last for very long. Kurt offers him a free punch, but Logan is satisfied with extremely rough and passionate make-up sex.

 

Kurt never does get the chance to propose. Logan beats him to it.

 

Kurt knows this whole experience is something he’ll carry with him for the rest of his life. Maybe he’ll go on to public speak. Maybe he’ll just keep it with him forever and let it influence his life and how he interacts with people. Whatever he chooses to do with the rest of his life, he knows that Logan is going to be by his side. By hook or by crook, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health.

 

It took him years to love himself. Then he had to relearn it all over, to finally realize that the most precious kind of love is the kind given to him by somebody else.

%MCEPASTEBIN%

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was super fun and totally worth the days spent on it, omg~


End file.
